There exists a variety of wood chipping assemblies which transform a whole tree into wood chips. Besides wood chips, these assemblies also generate residual matter, such as bark chips, knots and sawdust, which is generally kept separate from the good wood chips. In some cases, this separation is desirable such as when the chips are to be converted into pulp or paper. In other cases, however, the commingling of good chips and this residual material is desirable such as when the combination is to be burned as fuel. Thus, it sometimes becomes desirable to generate wood chips and residual matter separately and other times to commingle the two, depending upon the end use.
As far as is known, the majority of wood chipping assemblies generate wood chips and residual material separatedly from each other with the remaining chipping assemblies commingling the wood chips and residual material together. None of these assemblies, it is believed, enables a user to switch from one method of generation to another as may be desired. Thus, to obtain both mixtures of wood chips, two separate wood chipping assemblies are required, which is expensive and inefficient. Additionally, when such wood chipping is accomplished in the field or forest as compared to a wood yard of a paper mill, each assembly must be separately maneuvered to the job site, which is time-consuming and expensive.
It is a purpose of this invention to enable either mixture of wood chips to be generated as desired from only a single wood chipping assembly. It is a further purpose of this invention to enable rapid switching from one type of wood chip mixture to another.